Scratching the surface: documentary filmmaker Elena Andreicheva
In this Movidiam podcast, Elena Andreicheva tells us about her journey from studying science at university to producing powerful documentaries, including her award-winning directorial debut Polish Go Home. We talk to Elena about her approach to the delicate conditions that come with the making of documentaries, how she grows her collaboration network and break down the details of Polish Go Home.
Hello and welcome to the Movidiam podcast. I’m George from Movidiam, and today we’re speaking with Elena Andreicheva. Elena, welcome to the Movidiam podcast.
Thank you very much, George.
You’ve had a rather fascinating career as a filmmaker. Ukrainian-born but based in the UK now, and you’re carving out a niche for yourself producing hard-hitting documentaries for British and American TV. So tell us where it all started?
Gosh, so I guess career-wise, I’ve had quite an unusual background coming into, well now eventually making films. I actually studied potentially to be a scientist. I studied physics at university for no really apparent reason, just a vague interest in how the world works. Then I did some writing assignments and found that actually, I was much more interested in expressing ideas in another way.
Sort of a lot less structure and more creative. So to cut a long story short, I started working in media, I guess, through doing some research for a really interesting book about living off the grid. It happened to have been written by a producer-director and while I was doing that work I helped out on some development projects and thought: “wow, this documentary shtick is pretty interesting”, and essentially kind of worked up from that.
It’s very interesting isn’t it how it’s sort of one thing leads to another, and you’re almost on a creative journey and you sort of discover more about the format and the exposure you get and that sort of simulates the journey to a certain extent.
Yes, I know. Absolutely, I certainly am not somebody who can say: “ever since I was really young I wanted to make films.”
I certainly had an interest in imagery, in photography, but yet it all very much kind of fell into place kind of domino by domino if you know what I mean, and very subtly I think as well. Given my background in science, I started out doing a lot of documentaries on TV that were sort of sensibly kind of science based.
So they might have been about medicine, but the things that really hooked me on those projects were kind of the geopolitical forces at play there. So for example, my first research gig was looking at counterfeit medicines in East Africa and it just blew my mind, the really kind of less the science, more how that comes about and why.
Sure. When you dial into the subject, presumably you unearth more and more of interest which develops a story?
Yeah. I mean, exactly. So that’s how I got hooked on much more kind of character led documentary films. So I moved fairly quickly from science-related factual stuff to some more access-based documentaries.
Really interesting just on that point. I know that you’ve liaised on Movidiam with Sam French. He’s a very experienced documentary filmmaker and a very impressive individual who’s worked extensively in Afghanistan, somewhere that you’re currently in production for?
Yes, that’s right. That’s kind of a tricky one. I can’t say too much about it.
Sure.
Just to really wet the appetite. We’ll do an announcement quite soon hopefully. But yes, so it’s a really interesting project. I’ve been working with young women in Kabul on a film that’s going to look at their engagement with sport and hopefully some stories of empowerment coming off of that. So yeah, it was fantastic actually. I’d been on Movidiam for a while and I got an email with Sam’s podcast. I listened to that and thought: ”Wow, I should really speak to him”. We did, and it was wonderful.
Lots and lots of advice and context came out of that. With a location like that, you really need all the help you can get. I was starting completely from scratch, and I feel it’s really important, if you’re the one who’s producing a film in a location like that and you’re in charge of setting off all the protocols, you’ve gotta do all your leg work. He was incredibly helpful.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? How more and more of these sort of tools and services such as Movidiam are beginning to facilitate the film-making journey. Whether it’s in the research phase or whether it’s finding team members, or even just organizing the vast amount of data that’s kind of gathered throughout the course or longevity of a production.
Yes, definitely. I think every now and again, there’s a sense in the filmmaking community, sort of friendly and open as it is, that sometimes people with really privileged information, real experience of working in challenging environments, there’s this sense of guilt that I certainly get just calling journalists and filmmakers up and saying: “I’m going to pick your brain, or can I pick your brain” — I’m normally more polite than that.
I felt, especially with the connections from Movidiam, that maybe it could be a reciprocal thing. I think the more we can do that, hopefully, the better those relationships can be and they can grow into maybe collaborations at some stage. Not just a quick call and then “Okay bye bye I’ll never see you again and I won’t touch”.
Yes, it’s very interesting that you touch on a very sort of subtle human interest styles reciprocity issue, which is together in a sort of niche network, where you never know when you might need each other again. It’s quite an interesting one, and I think without networks, and without the sort of forum for conversation about your specialism, in this case filmmaking, or remote locations, I agree they’re lost in the ether of many different channels of communication.
Yes, I think the idea that you don’t have to send each other emails all the time updating, you know you’re on each other’s radar. As I’m sure every filmmaker, any freelancer will say: once you’re on a project, you’re on a project. Then when you finish, sometimes there is that sort of guilt about the abandonment of all your contacts, which is a real shame.
Well, I think what’s interesting as well. Certainly, looking to other industries where perhaps you go for one interview, and then join a job for a five or six, ten year period. As a film project, sometimes they’re picked up and put down over a two or three, or even a ten week period. Therefore, the picking your brains question in other industries happens perhaps once, whereas in the filmmaking industry it’s project-by-project. So that sensitivity to asking too much before you’re giving anything in return is quite a challenging one I suppose at the beginning of your journey as student filmmaker wanting to get into a professional role or some exposure. There’s a lot of asking and there is no formal structure per say once you’ve come out of the educational institution.
Absolutely, they’re just isn’t. And you have different experiences with different people. For example, someone calls me up about something, very happy to say, mostly because I feel, I’m still starting out on that journey.
It’s repaying it to the world.
Yes, exactly.
So Elena, now you also work part time or full time at Grain Media where there’s also a huge number of fascinating projects. Do you find that your job and role there is because of your interest? How did that come around, your decision to take a project there as opposed to in a different commercial entity?
So actually, I know the guys at Grain through a mutual contact, a director that I work with, Zara Hayes, who introduced me to Orlando, one of the heads of Grain. We really got on in terms of our interests in filmmaking. Grain is a very interesting production company that works with documentary but also narrative films, and a lot of corporate and commercial work as well.
For me, the documentary side obviously is a huge interest and Orlando is such a great film maker who’s really, really good to talk about documentary stuff and ideas with. I was really drawn to that and being in that environment, but also being somebody who could bring something to the company and kind of help fill out the documentary side of their output.
So one of the things that I really enjoy about being there at the moment working on, very specifically, the Afghanistan project. But in a less I guess formal capacity, being somebody who’s always kind of churning out new ideas and kind of pushing the documentary side of the output, I suppose.
Sure, interesting. It’s interesting how people find their niche whether it’s the documentary from far afield or commercial work and I think bridging the gap at Grain between this heavily commercial work, but also these fantastically fascinating stories that actually the whole world needs to hear and be exposed to.
Yes, it’s incredible to be able to pull off just one really high impact documentary project; a big feature like Virunga, for example. So obviously, when a company has done that and obviously that wasn’t just Grain, but when they’ve been so instrumental in doing that, everybody comes to them trying to pull off very similar projects.
By similar, I mean big, independent ideas. So it’s tricky because on the one hand, everybody wants to make a big feature doc. That’s great, but they’re so incredibly difficult to get made. So I think we’re working towards having that output, but also working up more documentary ideas that are also from broadcast.
It’s a very exciting time at the moment with loads of ideas kicking about in that respect as well. With my experience in television now, I think that’s quite handy. So it’s a really exciting time actually.
So tell us a little bit about your time in television before you kind of ventured out on your own and got more producing roles like Grain.
Basically, after the initial work in factual documentaries and series, I got involved with a company called Nerd TV, who made two very interesting projects that really helped me carve out a new path, the kind of access path. So one was a discovery series about prison gangs, which sounds very format and sort of the usual, but it’s actually the first series and the first time the presenter was working. It was a first-time presenter and it was absolutely fascinating getting access to gangs that operate in prisons.
Then moving on from that and the subject of incarceration, I worked on a project called Twelve Year Old Lifer, which was quite a big film for Channel4 and A&E in the US. It was all about juvenile justice; about two very young boys that were convicted of a murder and essentially potentially locked up for life.
Those two projects really set me up on the path to, I guess, documentaries that go after access that’s very difficult, or speak to people that are not that easily represented in film; so kind of criminal elements etc.
To that end, I worked on a few of the Drugs, Inc.’s for National Geographic. Again, that’s quite tricky because you’re trying to get access not only to the police but also to the people who are using drugs and the people who are selling them drugs and all of those sort of things. It was an incredible experience, I would say that was a very crucial experience to me, in terms of where I wanted to go and the voices that I wanted to represent in film.
Yes, I think it’s interesting, in hard-to-access hot spots around the globe, tradecraft is incredibly important, isn’t it? It’s very difficult to teach this — how you actually pull off that particular access point or what leverage you’re using or what personal skills — but there isn’t a rule book is there?
Yes, I mean it’s a really great point. No one tells you, and everytime that you start a new project and you look at, let’s say, you have a kind of list of things you’d ideally like to achieve, you sort of think: “My God is that actually going to happen?” Then bit by bit, you find yourself actually in that situation, talking to that person, filming with that person. Obviously, it’s a huge challenge, but the odd thing I found time and time again is that a lot of people say: “You can’t do that, that person will never talk to you”, all these things, they say this all the time.
Red rag to a bull.
Exactly! But I think at this start of maybe a career doing that, when you’re talking to a lot of, let’s say, organizations that are working with very vulnerable people, and you might call them up and they’ll say: “Yeah, yeah, you know what? You’ll never get that access”. And you’re thinking: “Well, of course. I trust you because you work with these people day in and day out”.
But what I found is that as a filmmaker, you can go much deeper. Not always, and it doesn’t mean you have to be pushy or anything, but you can, I think if you try, you quite often find that you can. Why that is, it’s hard to say. But I think some genuine kind of face-to-face engagement with someone; and I think the sense that — someone once said to me — “You’ll never convince someone if you don’t believe it”. So I don’t believe in this kind of, sort of inventing a reason for someone to take part. If you don’t believe in that reason, you’re never going to convince them.
Sure, that’s very interesting. So you’ve got to have a subject matter with which you are totally aligned and a voice which you are really wanting to share. Because I’m sure that there are other productions and producers out there that know how to leverage that interview dynamic or the expertise on camera or can massage that situation to get an outcome. But it’s a very interesting point. You’ve got to be totally subscribed and involved with the subject matter because you invest and live with it for such a long period of time.
Yes, I think it depends on what you’re like as a person, of course. I’m sure there are people who are perfectly comfortable knowing that they’re able to some degree manipulate a situation to get the desired outcome, but I feel that even if you can, that doesn’t mean you should.
It doesn’t necessarily work because there is something that comes across as an ounce of deceit.
Yes, I think that. Maybe some people are, again, fantastic kind of manipulators of that and you can’t tell. Simply for me, that isn’t the case. So yes, to be able to move on and live with that. To me, it’s really important to feel like I’ve been quite straight up about how I’m approaching things.
Yes, sure.
Having said that, of course when you’re in the thick of it and you’re maybe having the interview, there is a real pull to get what you want and to maybe follow that kind of manipulative…
Thread, yes. Sure. I think we’ve all been there as filmmakers — the hairs on the back of the neck go up when something is unfolding. Which perhaps, and more often than not, it’s unexpected. That is an exciting, sort of dopamine hit effectively and I understand that. I think that in turn does make very, very good watching.
Exactly. It’s kind of why we do it, I suppose. I find it doesn’t have to be a huge event or some massive sort of drama. It can be a very small, kind of human reaction that you know means volumes, you know?
Sure.
I get a real kick out of that.
I think it’s interesting. As the filmmaker, you’ve got the context of audience and distribution which the subject at that time, at that stage of the production, might not have because they’re dialed in or beamed in on that situation for half a day or a day or whatever it is and they just don’t have the same context that you might have, having to produce it or pre-produce it for several months.
Yes, you have to keep reminding yourself that your contributor or contributors are just in a completely different world — their world — just getting on often, with what they’re doing. You’ve got all these insane plans for act three and/or whatever. I find that quite interesting to think about and try and reconcile in your head.
Yes. Do you find that your background and the contrasts that you’ve had in your life today have informed and helped you in terms of how you navigate ‘new worlds’ when you beam into them?
Yes. I would say, I don’t know if this is a just a narrative I’ve created for myself, but I would say yes, definitely, absolutely. It’s not just the idea, I think, that you can fit in wherever, especially if you have a personality that’s quite diplomatic and kind of amenable, shall we say.
It’s also the idea that no one differs from you by that great a degree. I think that’s the thing that I find probably easiest in terms of then making connections with people in places that seem kind of very far away from where I come from. So I was 11 when I moved to the UK. The UK is not that different to Ukraine in so many ways, but from that age upwards I grew up with a lot of kids from all over the world and I think that was really valuable, and that definitely informs the way I am.
Operate, and you can be now from different tribes.
Yes.
Good, very interesting. Tell us, should we quickly recapture Polish Go Home as well? That was your directorial debut, and you’ve actually had a fair bit of success on the sort of festival circuit there as well. Can you just briefly touch on where that came from, and whether that’s going to come back to life?
Sure. So obviously, that film came very much out of my background. Polish Go Home is a film about a Polish immigrant here in London and his decision and his journey to go back to Poland after four years of being away from his family.
For quite a few years, I would say, I had been wanting to say something about immigration, given my background. It was very common for people not to know where I’m from and to make comments that I thought were a bit questionable: “Why are they coming over here, what’s going on? Why would you do that?”
I just really felt that I wanted to show or explain that people don’t move because it’s extremely easy and brilliant.It’s actually really, really difficult to leave your family, to leave your home. I sort of thought: “Okay, well I’m going to find a person who, to most people in the UK, is the definition of a non-desirable immigrant, and I’m going to try and make them care about that person”.
So at the heart of Polish Go Home is this kind of anti-hero. It was quite a simple task, I guess. I just thought: “Okay, I’ll find this person and try and humanize them and see what happens”. That’s what the film came out of.
It obviously chimed with people and the festival circuit.
Yes, it’s been quite a slow burner of a project for me because it feels like it’s been going on forever. It’s been about three years, and I finished the film in March last year. So finally finished, completed, having shot it over two years.
It’s great. We were at Aesthetica last year, which was really great; a big highlight from last year. This year, we’ve got screenings in Eindhoven coming up and in Vancouver. There’s hopefully a whole list of other festivals that we’ll be able to make it to, which should be fantastic.
It’s a kind of a weird, it’s quite niche. Its style is very kind of earthy, I would say. It is not a very particularly high concept documentary, in terms of form or anything else, but the one thing that I’m really happy about is that everyone, if they watch it, they really want to know more, and I think they’d care.
Sure. Well, I certainly got that from watching the trailer. You do dial in, you want to know more. I think you’ve cut that trailer very, very well indeed.
Thank you. My trailer cutting, yes, that was a new role for me. It’s funny how, when you’re sort of the captain of your own boat, you realize all these things that you have to do and become knowledgeable about; the festivals, the trailer, the sound mix, and you realize: “My goodness, I’m so glad that there are people who actually know how to do this”, and moving forward, to be able to actually work with people who specialize in that.
Sure, that’s again a very useful point to refer to Movidiam, because it’s all about finding these skills, drone pilot, and editor, visual effects artists. There’s tens of thousands of production companies and individuals profiling on the site now, you can really begin to build a very, very high-caliber team, almost immediately, which I think is an exciting new way of collaborating for filmmakers and people wanting to create computer games as well and as creative visual effects worlds and ultimately visual content.
Yes, absolutely. Often as someone who’s either working independently on quite a small scale or starting out, you feel like you have to be all things. But actually, I would say that it has been during the times in my career so far where I’ve worked with real specialists and professionals that I’ve learned the most. Yes, making an independent film on your own is great and you learn an absolute ton, but so do you working with other people.
Yes. Well, Elena, it’s been a full thirty minutes. I know you’ve probably got a very busy day ahead of you, so I’ll let you go. Thank you so much for your time on the Movidiam podcast. That was Elena Andreicheva, and we look forward to following up your progress and indeed your work at Grain and your freelance career.
Thank you very much, George. It’s been a pleasure.
Find Elena Andreicheva online here:
Movidiam:Elena Andreicheva
Website: http://www.andreicheva.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_andreicheva
